Giuseppe Tartini - Lettere e documenti / Pisma in dokumenti / Letters and Documents - Volume / Knjiga / Volume I

70 backdate the beginning of the formulation of the violinist’s theoretical ideas to the early Paduan years, shortly after his return from Prague. Apart from the letters on purely theoretical topics, many other subjects feature in the correspondence. Tartini and Martini discuss their respective compositions, their relationships with publishers, and gladly exchange professional and personal favours. After the introductory section of the first two chapters, the main body of the work follows with the collection of letters, organised in chronological order. If the fifty letters published by Del Fra are also considered, it becomes clear that the entire Tartini cor- respondence constitutes the largest body of letters of an 18th-century musician before Mozart. These are followed by the General Index of the Letters, in which the letters of the Tartini-Riccati correspondence already published by Del Fra are indicated, but not numbered. 27 In its current state, the work on the Tartini epistolary sources cannot be considered as concluded. Firstly, every single letter should be examined in greater depth, with the aim of defining the overall circumstances with more accuracy. The identities of some of the recipients of the letters, as well as those of various people mentioned, have yet to be clarified. Furthermore, it would be useful to explore further single groups of letters, such as the Rovereto or Venice group, which bear witness to Tartini’s relations with social and professional environments outside Padua. In this perspective it would also be worth expanding the research to the destinations of the letters and attempting a comparison between epistolary and documentary sources. In conclusion, the collection of letters has already proved itself to be a useful tool for research both in Tartini studies and in different fields of music history. The present collec- tion and reorganisation attempted here for the first time offers, albeit with its limitations, valuable material that can also form the basis of further study in different directions. 27 Del Fra, 2007.